Thursday, November 24, 2011


There is much to be found in this Burglar's 'dumb' letter. It is reproduced below from the Daily Mail website.

It appears, on the face of it, to be an anti Restorative or Community Justice - indeed even Criminal Justice - but it seems also to have been a form of Governmental 'criminology of the self' (Garland).

The letter was never sent - though we only discover this part way through - but we, potential victims, are meant to heed the wise words of the 'dumb' burglar to ensure we don't become a vitim of crime.

The Mail's final par encapsulates the disgust but also the fascination we all have for crime news:

A spokesman for the UK Neighbourhood Watch Trust said the letter was ‘appalling’, but added: ‘Christmas is coming and people like to leave their curtains open so people can see their lights and their tree, but they need to realise the criminal is looking at their TV, radio, computer and the presents under the tree.’

Obviously in addition to the 'criminology of the self' the Mail adds the 'criminology of the other', the ill-bred and ill-educated burglar. Win win.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Criminology Journals: Different Tanks Same Lawn

Different Tanks Same Lawn

Apropos my previous post, feedback on Twitter suggests some confusion but also scope for more info.

Graphic here shows top ten journals in Criminology according to Thomson Reuters in 2009 (seems to be the latest info revealed by Google search)


Criminology, the American Society of Criminology journal, is reassuringly first - though I often find it a bit too 'quanty' - and UK readers will know the BJC and Punishment and Society.  The others though look a touch specialist and this is confirmed by the full list.

Reassuring to see, in addition to BJC and P&S (numbers represent position in alpha order):

2. AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
Tri-annual ISSN: 0004-8658
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON, ENGLAND, EC1Y 1SP
  1. Social Sciences Citation Index
  2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
4. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Quarterly ISSN: 1707-7753
UNIV TORONTO PRESS INC, JOURNALS DIVISION, 5201 DUFFERIN ST, DOWNSVIEW, TORONTO, CANADA, ON, M3H 5T8
  1. Social Sciences Citation Index
  2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
8. CRIME MEDIA CULTURE
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON, ENGLAND, EC1Y 1SP
  1. Social Sciences Citation Index
  2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences 
  3. 13. CRIMINOLOGY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE
    Bimonthly ISSN: 1748-8958
    SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON, ENGLAND, EC1Y 1SP
    1. Social Sciences Citation Index
    2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
    14. DEVIANCE ET SOCIETE
    Quarterly ISSN: 0378-7931
    MEDECINE ET HYGIENE, CH DE LA MOUSSE 46, CASE POSTALE 475, CHENE-BOURG, SWITZERLAND, CH-1225
    1. Social Sciences Citation Index
    15. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
    Bimonthly ISSN: 1477-3708
    SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON, ENGLAND, EC1Y 1SP
    1. Social Sciences Citation Index
    2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
    16. EUROPEAN JOURNAL ON CRIMINAL POLICY AND RESEARCH
    Quarterly ISSN: 0928-1371
    SPRINGER, VAN GODEWIJCKSTRAAT 30, DORDRECHT, NETHERLANDS, 3311 GZ
    1. Social Sciences Citation Index
    2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
    17. FEMINIST CRIMINOLOGY
    Quarterly ISSN: 1557-0851
    SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2455 TELLER RD, THOUSAND OAKS, USA, CA, 91320
    1. Social Sciences Citation Index
    2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
    18. HOMICIDE STUDIES
    Quarterly ISSN: 1088-7679
    SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2455 TELLER RD, THOUSAND OAKS, USA, CA, 91320
    1. Social Sciences Citation Index
    2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
    19. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW CRIME AND JUSTICE
    Quarterly ISSN: 1756-0616
    ELSEVIER SCI LTD, THE BOULEVARD, LANGFORD LANE, KIDLINGTON, OXFORD, ENGLAND, OXON, OX5 1GB
    1. Social Sciences Citation Index
    2. Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences  
    3.  
       
      But less sure about:
    21. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND THE LAW 
    24. JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY & PSYCHOLOGY
     
       
       
       

Friday, September 09, 2011

Whose tanks on criminology's lawn?



 



 The table above from Thomson Reuters Science Watch is fascinating.  If you were choosing to go to University for under graduate or post graduate study or to ask someone to do some criminological research you might reasonably chose the University of Birmingham.  A google search for 'university of birmingham criminology' returns their Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology in the Psychology Dept which runs an appropriate Masters.  A search of the University's website reveals no under graduate criminology provision.  The next few results are for the many undergraduate and post graduate courses at Birmingham City University home to Professor David Wilson Britain's best known criminologist.
 Similarly the University of Nottingham has no under graduate criminololgy and again only a very specialist post grad provision.  This in the Law School.  The criminologists at Kings are to be found in the Law School teaching a Masters but also contributing criminology modules to the under graduate degree programme.  Cambridge hosts the Institute of Criminology focused on post graduate courses.  It and Leicester, though fourth and fifth, most clearly fit my idea of the broadly criminological.
So what are all these publications from the University of Birmingham that Thomson Reuters have declared to be criminological?  This is the list journals: CRIM JUSTICE BEHAV, AGGRESS VIOLENT BEH, PSYCHOL CRIME LAW, SEX ABUSE-J RES TR, J INTERPERS VIOLENCE, J FORENSIC PSYCHI PS, CRIMINOLOGY, TRAUMA VIOLENCE ABUS, SEX ABUSE-J RES TR, LEGAL CRIMINOL PSYCH, AGGRESS VIOLENT BEH, BRIT J CRIMINOL, LEGAL CRIMINOL PSYCH, AGGRESS VIOLENT BEH, INT J OFFENDER THER, CRIM LAW REV, POLIC SOC, J CRIM JUST, POLICING, PSYCHIAT PSYCHOL LAW, SOC LEGAL STUD.  I only have knowledge of those in red.
Looking at the authors and topics we find at 10th, in the Birmingham list Coupe, (Cambridge) and Blake (Birmingham) in Criminology writing on Burglary.  At 25 we find Garland (Leicester), Spalek (Birmingham) and Chakraborti (Leicester) in the British Journal of Criminology writing on Researching 'Hidden' Ethnic Minorities.  Next up is 'The management of domestic violence cases in the mode of trial hearing - Prosecutorial control and marginalizing victims' by Cammiss a Law Lecturer at Birmingham in the British Journal of Criminology.  In Policing and Society we find Best and 4 others writing on 'Gender differences in risk and treatment uptake in drug using offenders assessed in custody suite settings'.  Four are psychiatrists from a hospital which is part of the University and one a police officer.   In Policing Kebbell (Griffith University, Australia) and O'Kelly (Birmingham) writes on 'Police detectives' perceptions of giving evidence in court'.  And finally from those picked out in red above we have Piacentini (Strathclyde), Pallot (Oxford) and Moran (Birmingham) in Social and Legal Studies on 'Gender in Russian Penal Colonies'.
So we learn that despite having few 'criminologists' doctors and lawyers can top the criminology charts and that by dint of co-authoring also get into echt criminological journals.  I think a debate is needed.
Fessing up.  I acted as validator of Birmingham City University's MA in Criminology and have connections with Kings College London. Though a sociological/cultural criminologist I have no problem with psychology even biology within criminology but a deep fear that they become seen as the only 'Criminology'.  A recently elected member of the Executive Committee of the British Society of Criminology I write in my own capacity.  As a part time sociology/media lecturer at St Mary's UC don't expect to be troubling the REF panel for any subject.









Wednesday, August 17, 2011

It takes a riot

It takes a riot ‘It takes a riot’ is how Michael Heseltine headed his first memo when he was appointed, as Environment Secretary, to deal with the aftermath of the Toxteth riots 30 years ago. He is now returning to the City for a three week check up tour with locally born, but Hertfordshire based, ex Tesco boss, Sir Terry Leahy (Liverpool Vision). One Nation Tories are already calling to relaunch such schemes (Understand a Little More, Condemn a Little Less Rene Kinzett says the Conservatives would do well to follow the example of Michael Heseltine and try to understand troubled communities) in the aftermath of the most recent riots. In 1985 Brixton, Handsworth and Broadwater Farm all had riots. Like Toxteth they had riots in 1981 too. The bad relationship of local communities with the police - and the death of black people in proximity to the police were common features then as now. The Specials ‘Ghost Town’ was recorded in 1981 but its mix of urban decay, unemployment and heavy-handed policing would be a madeleine moment for that decade were it not routinely used to underscore footage of any following British riot. Moreover 1984-85 was marked by the Miner’s Strike though best now remembered as the setting for film and musical, Billy Elliot. Times were troubled as was authority. Around this time I was working as a junior Civil Servant in the Home Office making grants to charities that worked with ex-offenders. As part of my job I had to visit hostels around the country. I would meet the workers and residents and members of the local management committee. These committees were often made up of seniorish probation staff and socially minded magistrates and lawyers. Some had a religious connection. I was not senior enough to know of plans in the Home Office, letalone those of the Department of the Environment - then post Heseltine but still focussed on urban deprivation - to deal with urban hotspots that had had riots or were on a list of symbolic locations. But in 1986 eight Task Forces were announced under the Government’s Inner City Initiative as part of the Urban Programme which also included City Action Teams and Urban Development Corporations. They were in: Handsworth, Bristol St Paul’s, Leeds Chapeltown, Leicester Highfields, North Peckham, North Kensington, Manchester Moss Side and Middlesbrough (well pre Ray Mallon, Robocop, and now elected Mayor). Another 13 were added in 1987-1989 though 2 were replacements for some wound up! The National Audit Office Report Regenerating the Inner Cities gives more detail and a generously pusillanimous summary of the effectiveness of these programmes. I was promoted at the time these were being set up and was appointed Deputy Task Force Leader of North Kensington Task Force (NKTF) on secondment. It covered the Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill area. It is an extremely diverse area with a history of urban activism and disorder mixing trustafarians with a diverse black community with pockets of irish, moroccan, spanish and portuguese. But as James Meek (In Broadway Market) says speaking of the East End in 2011 this: is not the mixing city its liberal inhabitants would like to think it is. Loving the cultural diversity of London as a spectator-inhabitant is not the same as mingling with it. The yuppies don’t go to the white working-class pubs, and the white working class don’t go to the yuppie pubs. The Muslims don’t go to the pub at all and the post- Christians don’t go to the mosque or the church. The young don’t mix with the old. You don’t marry outside your income and education group. Parents segregate their school-age children by class and race. Building on Meek Owen Hatherley notes: Edinburgh might wall off its poor in Muirhouse or Leith, and Oxford might try not to think about Blackbird Leys, but in London, Manchester/Salford, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham—the cities that erupted on Monday 8th August- the rich live, by and large, next to the poor: £1,000,000 Georgian terraces next to estates with some of the deepest poverty in the EU. North Ken was like that 25 years ago. Indeed my occasional sentimental journeys to Carnival suggests it still is. (I should also note that I did some fieldwork for my PhD in car crime at and near Blackbird Leys after I had left the Home Office) The Task Force leader was a cigar smoking woman mid ranking civil servant and the only other staff was a locally recruited young woman of bajun extraction. The Task Force leader was eventually replaced by a young black man from the third sector. I, a white man, continued to go out and meet the community while the Leader met the Council and local business. I suspect our various inclinations to the maverick were seen to be useful in defusing local hostility. All, bar NKTF, the other TFs were in Labour controlled local authority areas but it faced more opposition from the paternalistic Tory Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea than many. Local activists were wary but willing to engage with the TF. We could promise little money (pilots, seedcorn, exploratory assessments) but some ‘bending’ of current schemes (Community Programme and Youth Training etc) and the ear of Ministers (ours was Ken Clarke, now Lord Chancellor). So mini Merseysides. So one day might be trying to broker the establishment of a Black Business Bureau, another talking to the local Housing Associations or visiting the many competing community groups - some divided by politics some by which mas camp they favoured in Carnival. And many meetings about the existence, route, policing and commercial potential of Carnival (plus ca change). At that time local communities refused to countenance the formal Police Consultative Groups recommended in the Scarman Report but met with them once a month at a local church near the All Saints Rd (aka ‘the Front Line’ and then home to the Mangrove Restaurant and Community Organisation). Meetings leading up to Carnival were best attended and generally more of the various white communities might turn up. And yet most of the questions to police were hygiene ones - would there be enough portaloos to reduce tendency for people to piss doorways and gardens. The Police and Local Authority representatives - and NKTF - could expect tough questioning. But some of the paranoia can be seen in that the Police were suspected of running undercover or extra patrols, that had not been cleared by back channels, because a white Nissan had been seen with no marking other than the word Patrol (It was a Nissan Patrol). I’m not sure the TFs worked in any big sense but it enabled close connection between some sections of Government and civil service and the people. I might expect to meet the very people I’d been discussing a grant or a project with the next day when shopping for vegetables on the Portobello Rd. And it was clearly less damaging than harsh sentencing and ignoring communities in pain. My greatest regret is that I was unable to help Brinsley Forde of Aswad set up a music studio for young people. He came by on the second day we opened. I was out of my depth, finding my feet and he never came back. Not much recompense but, instead of replaying Ghost Town, I offer these lines’ from Aswad’s African Children. African Children In a concrete situation African children Wonder do you know where you’re coming from All of the nation are living in these tenements Precast stonewall concrete cubicals Their rent increases each and every day Structural repairs are assessed yet not done Lift out of action on the twenty-seventh floor And they work they smell
40th Anniversary of the Stanford Prison Experiment

This is event getting some fairly kind coverage in media.

Zimbardo’s early 1970s Stanford Prison Experiment, is that college
students given sufficient power and a uniform can become tyrants. Less
well-known might be the BBC’s rerun of the experiment in 2002,
broadcast as The Experiment which called into question Zimbardo’s findings
and sparked related academic work (for instance Haslam and Reicher
(2003) and interviews with the Guardian and the Psychologist).

I rif on this and TV's Banged Up 'Reality TV' here.
Apologies for not posting in last year but long form academic work, short form tweeting and facebooking have kept me away

Thursday, July 07, 2011

And particularly enjoyed this at BSC2011

Ms Sarah Lamble
QUEER INVESTMENTS IN PUNISHMENT: SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE EXPANDING PENAL STATE

Arguing that LGBTQ activists sucked into Punitiveness. For instance some nearly tricked into an EDL fronted 'Pride' March that was just an excuse to march through muslim areas.


(see my entry on Queer Theory in Sage Dictionary of Criminology too)
More greenery at BSC2011

Ms Lieselot Bisschop
FLOWS OF TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME: CASE STUDY RESEARCH ON E‐WASTE AND TIMBER

Dr Gary Potter
RESISTANCE IS FERTILE

Environmental Activism as (potentially) criminal

Miss Hanneke Mol
SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE FROM AN ECOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVE: A (RE‐)CONSIDERATION OF HARM

perils of palm Oil in columbia
A green session at BSC2011

Transnational Context of Local Environmental Crimes Professor Nigel South
WATER AS A LOCAL AND GLOBAL RESOURCE: ISSUES FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF GREEN AND CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGIES

Our locally bought water bottles unnecessary, potentially unhealthy and end up in pacific

Professor Rob White LOCALISM AND TRANSNATIONALISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL
HARM

Toxic Towns in Tasmania

Dr Tanya Wyatt
TRANSNATIONAL WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING IN OUR BACK GARDEN: A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION OF THE HEATHROW ANIMAL RECEPTION CENTRE

Heathrow a hub for legal and illegal animal trade and some animals end up imprisoned there without parole.
Obviously presented my own paper

MATTER ALL OVER THE PLACE: LITTER, CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

a contribution to green criminology that i hope will see the light of day in Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology

I argue criminology, including green criminology, fails to take litter seriously and that the 'litterature' is too punitive or unknowing of criminological issues etc.
And another session.

Arts, Sex Work and Sexual Exploitation: Visualising Sex Work
Professor Maggie O’Neill, Ms Rosie Campbell and Mr Michael
Atkins
SEX WORK, VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY AND PARTICIPATORY
METHODS: TOWARDS A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC IMAGINARY
Presentation of Dr Nick Mai’s film
NORMAL: FILM, ETHNOGRAPHY AND SEX WORK
Dr Teela Sanders
SEEING IS BELIEVING: LAP DANCING UNCOVERED
Another session attended at BSC2011.

Dr Jo Buckle and Professor Hazel Croall
CRIME AND THE ARCHERS: FROM POST‐WAR TO ‘FARM NOIR’ (But also see my work on this here)

Dr Angus Nurse
POLICING WILDLIFE: PERSPECTIVES ON CRIMINALITY IN WILDLIFE
CRIME (Glad to see this, I was his external examiner for PhD)














Sessions I attended included:

Creativity in the Criminal Justice System
Ms Laura Caulfield and Mr Dean Wilkinson
THE USE OF THE ARTS IN A THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY PRISON

Ms Charlotte Bilby and Ms Louise Ridley
IN/OUTSIDER ART: CRIMINOLOGISTS CURATING A PRISONER ART EXHIBITION

Here are some pictures.

Have just been at British Society of Criminology Conference at Northumbria Uni. Tweeted extensively as @criminology4u under hashtags #BSC2011 and #criminology. Over next few posts/days will post more reflective highlights.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Rio de Janeiro appoints first female police chief

Guardian report here.

A hard job - not least the gender stereotypes - which she embraces: "I will be a severe mother. I will punish when necessary and distribute hugs when they are deserved," Very Gene Hunt! But we are reassured, 'Rocha told the newspaper, which described her as a fan of Issey Miyake perfume, high heels and cooking.'

Guessing from this quote most of her officers are men, 'In an interview with O Globo she said she wanted her officers to be "polite, clean-shaven, good-humoured and kind".'

Perp Walk Staged

There are diplomatic and legal issues surrounding the case of Florence Cassez. My concern here is with the suggestion that her arrest was staged for the cameras a day after her arrest.
Link
See this report from Time mag.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

UK cyber crime costs £27bn a year - government report

So says BBC report here.
But not only is this figure often self -reported (so some under-reporting as report acknowledges) but also self-evaluating. So we discover late in the piece that the headline figure is made up thuswise.

'Intellectual property theft cost £9.2bn, industrial espionage £7.6bn, this was followed by extortion, which cost £2.2bn, and direct online theft, which cost business £1.3bn. Some £1bn was lost through theft of customer data.'

They mention old-fashioned bank robbery but in those you knew exactly how much you had lost - or said you did.

So the lowest figures likely to be more accurate with the higher figures plucked from the counter-factual air.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Hollyoaks rape trial to use viewers' 'jury'

Outcome of Channel 4 soap's ongoing storyline to be decided off-screen by members of the public


see Guardian article here

Alcohol and Media

"In reality, we see a fairly deep-rooted decline in alcohol consumption which dates back to 2004. That's not something you see acknowledged in the media."

"With newspapers, the headline is always the same: 'Shock rise in binge drinking'. But you look at the figures, and you see alcohol sales are declining.

This BBC report contrasts falling alcohol sales with continued shock reporting rightly seeing it as part of an anti-Labour (their then Licensing Bill) bias in some papers, particularly Daily Mail

Sunday, January 09, 2011

John Lewis continues to be the metaphorce of choice. Police to be taught politeness by JL staff. See this article on police friendly site.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

The Campaign for Plain English attack the waste of time and space of police slogans on websites and sides of cars etc. Read the Guardian report here.

These are described as meaningless and sometimes nonsensical:

"Some are just meaningless. Northumbria's slogan is 'Total Policing'. What does that mean? Do some police forces operate 'partial policing'?

They playfully suggest we chose who to report our crime to:

"Or is it being suggested that victims of crime should shop around? Is it better to be mugged in Suffolk because the police there are 'Taking Pride in Keeping Suffolk Safe' than in Northamptonshire, where they are 'Putting Communities First'?"

No criminologist, or indeed police source is quoted. So here goes.

It is just as likely that this 'marketing' comes in the wake of rampant 'managerialism' (see McLaughlin, E. and Murji, K. 2001. Lost connections and new directions: neo-liberalism, new public managerialism and the modernization of the British police).

And 'ordinary coppers' likely to be fairly dismissive of it too.

So have to agree with CPE so let's get some community servicers to rub slogans off for them. Sure some scallies might do it for free, if a little roughly.